"I'm still pinching myself to get into the [Top] 10, first time around.

"It was something in the back of my mind but knowing how tough the competition is here...

"We ran a green set of tyres in Practice 1 because we had an extra set, and we knew there’d be a fair bit of work to do because no one else ran a green set.

"In Practice 2, [with] everyone running on a green set at the end, we knew it was going to be tough – but we just managed to get the lap in.

"[I'm] still a million miles away from [pacesetter Scott McLaughlin], but really happy for all the guys."

While happy with his progress on Day 1, the Super2 race winner says he'll hold declaring that he belongs in the top tier until after this weekend's two races.

"Look, it’s early days," he said.

"We’ve still got two long races to come. That’s going to be where it counts, to see how I race against the other guys.

"To be automatically in the Top 16 [on the grid] is really good, and hopefully we can move up a few spots in Q2, but yeah, it’s just going to be a completely different ball game. This level of drivers, and we’ve got pit stops, and there’ll be so many new features for me.

"So it’s going to be a lot of rapid learning across the rest of the weekend."